


Electric Blues

by Ash_Rabbit



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Duel Academy is a hot mess, Duel Links, Gen, Post-Dark Side Of Dimensions, don't ask an ace for romance, hopefully actually dealing with emotions, mokuba is a competent gremlin, seto needs to get off his bullshit, yu-gi-oh gx spoilers, yugi is allowed to be bitter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2020-11-22 11:03:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20873141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ash_Rabbit/pseuds/Ash_Rabbit
Summary: Yugi Mutou has retired from dueling, Mokuba Kaiba doesn't care, and just wants to make his brothers dream of Duel Links a reality. One problem with that, Seto Kaiba entered days ago, and he hasn't come out.Or Yugi Mutou has to face his feelings, and Seto Kaiba is, as always, a disaster genius.





	1. Chapter 1

Yugi can’t help but wonder what sort of world ending disaster has once again struck Kaiba Corp. Why else would Mokuba Kaiba be standing in front of him with a thick dosier, big grey eyes shot with red, and a slightly greasy birds-nest, at the positively obscene hour of three am. Unless Kaiba was in one of his “Duel me, Yugi!” funks that occurred after one too many sleepless nights, but those tended to end the moment he saw Yugi, and not the Pharaoh. Nor had one occured in quite some time, leaving Yugi to his self imposed exile and early retirement.

“I’m not dueling your brother.” He says, letting Mokuba enter his messy workspace. Not overly worried about his game notes being picked apart by the acting-president of Kaiba Corp, they were all written in hieratic, and the elder Kaiba, the fluent Kaiba, held no interest for anything relating back to ancient Egypt (outside of his other self), or him. He leans against his desk and tries not to look like he hasn’t slept in a week. 

“It’s not that.” Mokuba snaps, and Yugi thinks, that once upon a time he would have felt guilty for the distress the younger boy is radiating. “I- I haven’t heard from Seto in days, I think something is wrong with Duel Links.”

“Pull him out then, I’m sure you and your brother implemented safety measures after the digital world incidents.” If they hadn’t, he would be having words with the older Kaiba. 

“They’re not working!” Mokuba growls, a rumble similar to the thunder dragons he likes to field. Yugi wonders if he pushes enough of the younger boys buttons, if Mokuba would threaten to butcher his hands again. He quite likes his fingers, perhaps a little less than he used to, but they let him sketch out his plans for  _ ‘Spherium’. _ “Something is blocking the connection between Seto’s consciousness and his immersion gear. I need someone, I need you to get my brother back!” 

“I don’t duel anymore, I haven’t in over a year. Why not go to Jounouchi? He’s the current Japanese champion after all.” Yugi sighs, swallowing back all retorts that sit bitter on his tongue. He doesn’t want to hurt Mokuba, but he doesn’t think the other cares how many of his feelings are tied into Duel Monsters.

“But you’re the best. You’ve beaten the Pharaoh, if anyone can save my brother it’s you!” Mokuba hisses, narrowed eyes fall closed and the younger boy straightens his posture, adopts a serene expression and straightens his rumpled white suit. “Fine. I’ll approach Jounouchi. He’s never beaten my brother in a duel. So, I wonder how he’ll do against whatever’s holding him there.” Shit, he hadn’t thought about that. It’s clearly a sign that he needs to sleep, but sleeping means-

“I’ll do it. Just leave my friends out of it.” Yugi says, sagging even further against his desk and accepts the thick dosier with quiet resignation. The first tab covers the general structure of the world and its mechanics. A new play style called speed dueling, and the setting was a fully realized virtual mimicry of Domino City. Yugi wonders how many buildings can be entered, or if it was solely streets, in an attempt to replicate Battle City. The second tab is a listing of all included cards, which he skims in search of those he favours, shame that there was no Marshmallon. He flips to the third tab and the second he looks down, his heart stops. 

It’s labelled as Mutou Yugi, but it is most certainly not him. The bangs are messier, eyes narrowed to an almost condescending point, and the lips have thinned as the edges stretch into a confident leer. He swallows audibly as his fingers trace the cocky pose of his other self’s character model, and drops his gaze to the deck listings. Level ten and twenty are their Death-T and Duelist Kingdom decks respectively, probably for new players to have an easy time adjusting. Thirty is Battle City, lacking the God cards of course, but it still leaves a knot in his chest. Forty is the same deck but modified with modern cards that operate better in today’s meta. 

“Why?” He hisses, the folder crumpling under the force of his sweaty fingers.

“From a marketing standpoint it only makes sense to have the King of Games as a wandering opponent.” Mokuba rushes out, complexion draining at the sight of the character profile. “Seto was also- he was going to approach you about it, after he was done finalizing most of the process, we already got permission from the other Battle City participants.” That would explain all of those calls he’d sent straight to voicemail.

“I doubt your brother cared if I agreed or not.” Yugi murmurs, gazing down at the notes for  _ Wandering Duelist: King of Games. _ What a ridiculously overpowered NPC, with the special skill ‘ _ Divine Beast Advent’  _ he could summon the ‘ _ Sky Dragon of Osiris’ _ straight to the field after turn five. “Duel Links will be the last time. No more favours, no more trying to drag me back to the dueling scene. I’m done.” 

“I can only promise to try to stop Seto, but I can’t promise for him.” Mokuba counters, his fingers twisting anxiously against themselves.

“Fair enough. Give me thirty minutes and we can go.” Who knows how long he’ll be stuck in VR, it could be anywhere from two hours to two weeks.

“You don’t want to get some more sleep first?” Mokuba asks, pure formality from someone who comes knocking at three in the morning.

“It’s four am, the sooner I rescue your brother, the sooner I can leave dueling in its entirety behind.” Yugi scoffs, rolling his eyes as he digs through his closet for something clean. It wasn’t like he could sleep at night anyways, it was too quiet without- It was too quiet. He swallows uneasily as the only thing he unearths is his few winter clothing pieces and his old dueling outfit, the leather pants, the royal blue school jacket. Everything else lays crumpled and stale with sweat, in his overflowing laundry basket. He ignores Mokuba’s stare as he roughly pulls the outfit out and storms to the bathroom.

* * *

They drive to Kaiba Corp in silence, Mokuba would stare at Yugi, open his mouth and snap it shut seconds later. Yugi would in turn studiously ignore Mokuba in favour of gazing at the empty streets, and the slow bleed of orange across indigo. The glass planes of the skyscrapers ablaze with warm hues, their destination a flaming beacon in Domino’s heart. 

He exhales in relief as the unreasonably long ride ends, and as they walk past the powered down marble Blue Eyes fountain that sits in the centre of the main lobby towards the elevator, Yugi breaks the silence.

“Is there anything else you have to tell me, that wasn’t in the folder?” 

“Seto, he, he spent a lot of time on programming y- on programming the Pharaoh. That was the part of the code that he was the most invested in, I don’t know if it means anything though.” Mokuba’s gaze is steadily fixed on the ever changing numbers, but his posture has loosened ever so slightly.

“Can you program it to have my last tournament deck, I’ll be able to run through things faster with it.” It would take too long if the only powerful card in his deck was a Dark Magician.

“Yeah, but you’re going to have to tell me which cards you want dropped.” Eye contact is broken the moment it’s made, and Yugi wonders when that changed, when he had changed.

“Of course.” 

The doors open, and Mokuba is quick to navigate the winding halls of the research levels. Similar to a maze, a reflection of a labyrinthine mind- His jaw clenches, fingers twitch and he resists the urge to rip the light jacket off of him. 

“Are you-” 

“I’m fine, let’s just get this over with.” Yugi grinds out, squeezing his eyes shut before inhaling sharply. “It’s just a headache.” The words bounce hollowly through his skull and down the hall.

“Right, um, this is it.” Mokuba says, sticking his card shaped pendant into a slot. The light flashes blue and the door slides open. Stark white, with harsh lighting, and a set of pods sit in the centre of the room, arranged around a central pillar covered in thick coiling cables and flashing lights. One pod was active, the cables hooked to it shone the same hues as the duel disks hologram pads.

“Would you prefer to focus on the Silent series, Toys, Dark Magicians, or the Gadgets?” Mokuba asks, drawing Yugi’s gaze to the large screens plastered against the far left, and a large console that could host multiple operators. But not enough to form the game, did Kaiba just repurpose equipment from their previous virtual world hijinks?

“Silent and add Gandora, you don’t have enough Gadgets or Toy support programmed into the system yet.” He stands behind Mokuba’s chair watching as cards are transferred over, making a few comments about swapping around certain spells and traps. “How do you plan to popularise Duel Links if it requires this level of hardware to enter?”

“We were going to have it be augmented reality when mass marketed, with full immersion available through Kaiba Lands, and Kaiba Arcades. The wandering duelists would either be AI, or for special events we would invite famous duelists to enter the system from here.” Mokuba says, opening another tab causing a whole slew of skills to appear.

“I see, what about players in different countries.” Kaiba would never limit himself to just Domino, and it wouldn’t be logical to base it solely on a Japanese city, especially if it was an overlay.

“We have incomplete levels for different major cities across the world, Cairo, Beijing, Toronto, New York, if it’s a country's major tourist destination, we have parts of it coded, but nothing is fully realized outside of the Domino level yet. Different countries will be broken down into four or more tourist zones, which’ll be playable for events with icons for A.I. opponents through an app.” Mokuba puffs up proudly. “So, do you have a preference on your skill or?”

“Players have skills too?” He would’ve thought it’d be isolated to the A.I.’s to provide more of a challenge to players. “Do you have anything to balance my first hand?”

“It’s not in the Other Dimension model, but It’d be no problem to rework the coding for that.” Mokuba chirps, opening two windows of code, both labelled Mutou Yugi.

“Why are there-” Two of him, it’s more likely than you’d think, but still. Kaiba had made it crystal clear he wanted very little to do with a Yugi who wasn’t the Pharaoh.

“The Other Dimension is for the most current versions of famous duelists, but the regular Duel Monsters world is for their Battle City selves. This way players can get the best of both worlds.” Mokuba explains as he edits the code, overriding the starter deck with the newly crafted one. How delightfully corporate, he can only hope his model actually looks like him. Ignoring the fact that he and his other self were essentially identical, but still, presentation was half the person. “Anyways, I think you’re good to go Yugi!” He beams, and Yugi feels his heart sticks in his throat.

“Yeah, any specific pod you want me in?” Yugi says, teeth sinking into his bottom lip. Was that what it was like for other people, to be on this side of a smile so full of hope that you couldn’t bear to break that heart. 

“The one to the left of Seto would be great!” The younger boy chirps. “Oh, before I forget.” He lobs a small white chunk at him and Yugi catches it easily. It’s the head piece from the duel with Aigami, the last time he’d- “This way I have a direct line of connection with you even if the pod is cut off. I’ve adjusted it so it’ll let me read your broadcasted thoughts, so we should have a line of communication, even if something tries to cut the connection like it did with my brother.” Yugi clips it on and tries not to think about how the older Kaiba had hooked a duel disk to his brain with one of these.

He peers into Kaiba’s pod and see’s that once neat brown locks have mulleted in the time they’ve been trapped underneath a headpiece that had several thin wires coming out of it, braiding up into a thick cable. IV’s are attached to the back of large spidery hands, a thick metal band wraps around his throat, a requirement for the crossing apparently. With a soft sigh he takes off his collar, and rubs his throat missing the weight in a way that settles hollowly in his chest. He can only hope he doesn’t reach the point of needing a feeding tube.

“It helps sink into the nervous system, stabilising their consciousness and connection to the crystal cloud network, causing all sensations to be heightened to the point they’re indistinguishable from what we experience here.” Mokuba says as he punches in a code to activate his assigned pod. That sounds like the setup for those sci-fi horror movies Ryou likes to watch. Yugi accepts that this is the hole he has chosen, and climbs into the pod. “Here, forehead, temples and the back of your neck.” A jar is shoved into his hands with a clear blue gel. “Your memories will be added to the structure of the city, so don’t panic when the game shop is an exact replica. We can remove that data later, but I thought you might prefer a familiar rest point in case I can’t pull you out.” That wasn’t reassuring in the least.

His hands are stuck with IV’s and the headgear forces his permanently spiky locks down before being tightened to rest snuggly against his skull.

Mokuba pauses and looks at Yugi. Really looks at him, grey eyes shining like steel as they pierce through him. “I’m sorry Yugi. I know Seto and I haven’t been kind to you, even after all you’ve done for us. I hope that after all this, we can be real friends.” 

He can only nod mutely before leaning back into the pod, and thinks that Mokuba truly is the more dangerous Kaiba brother.

The collar clamps down, the lid falls upon his coffin and the world falls to blue as his neck is stabbed by something thin and sharp.

_ Welcome to Duel Links, Legendary Duelist: Mutou Yugi... _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a bit of clean-up, mostly fixing janky syntax and tensing errors.  
Posted Oct 3rd 2019  
Dec 13th 2019, edit 1  
Feel free to comment as you please.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yugi and the no good, very bad day.

He’s been falling for a while now, through an endless expanse of shimmering cobalt blue, past pale spiralling double-helix chains of data cubes. Yugi tips himself into a somersault, if only to see how it affects the momentum of his fall. It does nothing, which he should have expected, gravity would be a programmed variable, removed from regular physics. With a yawn he flips himself again and debates the merits of attempting a nap. There was no guarantee that he would actually be able to sleep, but it could help send his consciousness to his room. 

Yugi lets his lids flutter shut, and stretches out, loosening his limbs as the silence echoes around him. A bright light illuminates his lids, like sunset coloured paper lanterns and he catches sight of a swirling data portal before he falls through it. Seconds later he’s screaming, plummeting down towards a large sparkling body of water. In between his terror and frantic attempts to gather himself into a divers position, he can catch the blurry impression of a large building with multicoloured roofs and a shit ton of obelisks, and was that a volcano?

Yugi hits the water, hard, spluttering as he comes up for air. There was a submarine down there, a submarine, in a virtual dueling game. 

“Mokuba, where am I?” He gasps out as he kicks his way to shore.

_ “The computer says you’re in the incomplete Toronto level. I don’t know what happened, you were supposed to land in the DM world, but while you were being uploaded, your files got hijacked.”  _ Mokuba’s voice rings in his left ear, a little tinny, less clear then he would have expected from a Kaiba Corp product that may or may not be wired to his brain.

“I wasn’t aware that Canada had volcanoes.” Yugi wheezes, heaving himself onto burning sand, and groans at how horribly life like it is. Something is digging into his stomach, but he can’t be bothered just yet, he needs to rest for a minute. It’s a familiar pain, comfortable in a way he hasn’t been for a long while. “My cardio stinks.”

_ “What do you mean there’s a volcano?!”  _ Mokuba screeches, and Yugi can’t withhold his flinch.  _ “Describe what else you see, none of the North American files should have geography like that.” _

“There’s a weird central building, the roofs looked domed, and painted the primary colours, surrounded by obelisks. Lots of trees, and an ocean, which I got dropped into, from several metres above. Also, whose idea was it to place obelisks?” Odd choice for a man who liked to pretend he had nothing to do with Egypt.

_ “It couldn’t be, Yugi you need to go to the central building. If I’m right the Toronto level was skinned and patched by the Duel Academy plans. I need you to find an A.I. named Jaden Yuki, he has hair like a Kuriboh, they should help pin what's happening in that world. I need to revise some stuff, so I’ll be back in an hour or two.” _

“Mokuba, wait!” No response, of course. At least he has a goal, find a human Kuriboh, that shouldn’t be too hard. He would have liked to have known why Kaiba planned to build a school for dueling, on an island with an active volcano. He crawls to his feet and can only hope the code for sand was linked to the location, and that leaving the beach would leave him dry and presentable. As he brushes himself off, the familiar clicking of chain draws his attention down. He notes with a dull rising horror that drowns out the sound of the oceans tides, the puzzle. He was wearing the puzzle. 

With a shrill cry he tries to rip it off, but the chain slips through his fingers and the cold gold mocks him as he tries to pull it over his head. He can’t, not when it was without- He wasn’t-

His voice leaves him and he can’t breathe. He claws at the sand, and watches as that too slips through his fingers. His eyes burn, and the world is a blur as everything spins. He hadn’t known he’d still had tears to cry. He sits there, in pale gold dunes that burn him with every touch, and desperately tries to breathe, rubbing his eyes furiously, with unfortunately sticky, sand coated hands. The eye of wadjet glitters mockingly in the light. 

Eventually, Yugi stumbles back to his feet. Trying to ignore the familiar weight of the puzzle as he marches towards the western coast of the island, keeping an eye out for tall sandstone spires. His legs are quaking and his jaw clenches uncontrollably, teeth threatening to splinter under the grinding pressure, he’s going to deck Kaiba the next time he sees him, emotional compensation and all that. Speaking of decks, Yugi drops his hand to his deck pouch, the familiar brush of warm leather brings up a thin holographic screen, which displays cards that he most certainly did not add. 

The only familiar card was  _ Dark Magician _ , because of course it was. The art style, was surprisingly from the pre-hologram era of  _ Magic & Wizards. _ Blue skin and straw coloured hair poked out from under black robes trimmed in a thin red piping. He taps the card with a wistful smile and watches it grow in size, he had bought the booster pack as a treat, an additional reward for eight years of continuous effort and dedication. Yugi’s favourite card for the longest time, appearing at the beginning of his windfall of luck. He taps the screen again, zooming out, and wonders if he would have reacted differently if it weren’t for the pendant that cut into his stomach and caused the silence to grow to a deafening degree.

Ah, the rest of the deck was unsalvageable. All vanilla monsters with low stats, the two copies of the spell, ‘ _ Negate Attack’ _ , would come in handy, if only to stall for tributing. A splotch of red draws his gaze to the top right corner of the screen, a mailbox notification. He taps it and frowns.

_ “Cheaters will be penalized.” _

“It’s not cheating if you’re testing a faulty system for bugs, or on a not-rescue mission.” Yugi huffs, he wonders if Kaiba has sequestered himself away purposefully, it wouldn’t be the first time Kaiba’s obsessiveness and egotism drove a wedge between him and Mokuba, and reality. A cold breeze rustles through the trees. Yugi flinches as he feels it cut against his cheeks and through his clothes. The hyper-realism, was it pre-programmed, or was it rooted in his memories? He clears his throat, straightens his posture and walks briskly through the almost oppressively silent woods. He supposed programming wildlife would be a low priority for something in its early development stages, which would logically lead to the implication that A, the submarine was added by whatever entity was keeping Kaiba here for whatever reason, or B, Kaiba plans to build an academy dedicated to Duel Monsters and decided it needed a submarine for whatever reason. Yugi was leaning more towards the latter, but the lack of Blue Eyes in the subs aesthetics was throwing him off.

He spots a few wandering NPCs dressed in what was assumedly the school uniform as the colours lined up with the roofs, and they all had the same style of jacket. Blue was probably identifying those of the highest skill or year level, if only due to having more variation in uniform design, as well as it lining up more readily with Kaiba’s preferences then red and yellow would. 

Yugi casts a stink eye towards his janky deck and sighs. If he were a self absorbed maniac with unresolved issues, what colour would be weakest? If blue were to be associated with the Blue-Eyes, or Obelisk, then red would be the most likely culprit, associated with Red-Eyes and Slifer. He jumps in front of the nearest red duelist and is immediately challenged to a duel.  _ Lvl 1 Slifer Duelist: Fire/Water/Lightning.  _ The text hovers as the A.I. waits for his response. Ah, that was a pleasant surprise, duels weren’t shoved forcefully down his throat, no need for ducking behind bushes then.

He accepts the duel with the slightest tip of his head, and proceeds to decimate his opponent. No spell or trap cards at all, and all monsters were summoned in attack mode. It was too easy.

“Hand over the goods.” Yugi says to his dramatically cowering opponent, crooking his fingers for emphasis. He’d rather not pat down trembling data for whatever hell currency was programmed into this game, but there’s no way in hell he was showing up to a market zone without something to buy new cards.

A screen blinks into existence, hovering at his eye level and Yugi swipes irritably at his duel assessment score, and watches as a chest appears in a small sparkly poof. A small pool of gold coins that dissolved into shimmering data upon contact, and a common card, another low stats normal monster. He taps it again and watches as an empty bar is filled with violet, before emptying,  _ Lvl 2 _ . Gems rain down in front of him, bursting into sparkling data once they hit the ground, it must be a premium currency. Another swipe and the screen dissolves as a pale blue text window pops up briefly, an incomplete mission. Ugh, that meant farming.

By the time he reaches the main academy he has scraped his way to level five, and thankfully ground out a few workable spells and three normal tickets. His stage level has apparently climbed as well, sitting at a tidy three, if only because he hasn’t cared to check what the stage missions were. Yugi shuffles down the paved walkway with a yawn and is a little put-off by the clashing architecture. The mixing styles wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t golden stone spires, clashing against white grecian pillars, and cold steel walls. Perhaps the school was in a beta phase as well, a simple placeholder as finer details were worked out.

Yugi briefly debates where he was likely to find an NPC that had function outside of dueling, before shrugging slowly slumping shoulders, and ambles off towards the blue area. On his way he passes by a small building, large plasma screens read ‘ _ Opening Soon’ _ . A shady man in a top hat and cloak lurks in front of it. Yugi skirts around the man, someone that deliberately creepy has a high probability of being a manipulative quest giver, or part of the black market.  _ Wait.  _ Yugi pivots sharply on his heel and strides towards the overdressed man. Up close he’s even more suspicious looking, sporting an unhealthily pale complexion and a dingy grey mask that covers the left eye with a shimmering red lens, and their right jawline is painted into a grin.

“I am the Card Trader. For a fee I can offer you cards beyond your wildest dreams.” Their voice was nasally, their form broad and corpulent. When he smiles, it’s a leer reminiscent of the ‘ _ Pot of Greeds’ _ . 

“Alright, show me your stock please.” Yugi sighs.

Dramatically the cape is tossed back and a stack of unsleeved cards are presented to Yugi, causing a screen to pop up.

“Don’t delay, trade today.” The Card Trader sings, one dead eye staring into his own dull violets. Ah, it really was nice work done on the misted over eye, thin veins of red were visible, and the skin sagged beneath it in a slightly exaggerated but admirable fashion. As unbearable as Kaiba could be, you could see the passion oozing from each unnecessary detail he included. 

Yugi skims over the featured inventory and snags the only functional archetype he sees, ‘ _ Aromage’ _ , before swiping through the regular inventory with more force than necessary. Really, only one copy at a time from featured, and a single card from regular a day? It made sense from a game design perspective but it was making his mission more tedious than necessary. He walks away with five new cards, and proceeds to rearrange half his deck, again. At least now he has enough cards for a spellcaster deck, and around fifty percent of the cards were semi-functional. 

It’s after a few blocks that he realises something. “I forgot to ask if he’d seen any human Kuribohs.” Yugi groans, his shoulders droop and he tips his head to rest against a nearby wall. It wasn’t like he expected the NPC to be particularly helpful in that field, but the stranger a character dressed the more they tended to know. He peels himself from the steel wall and picks the dome most likely to take him to a helpful NPC.

The blue dome leads into an expansive building with winding halls. His first few peeks behind doors lead to empty cavernous lecture halls, others open on average classrooms. It’s upon reaching what seems to be the heart of the building, that Yugi finds the first duelist NPC that doesn’t look like a student. Disregarding the royal blue coat, Yugi doubted pink ruffles would be a detail added to a standard duelist. Perfect, he had to know the NPCs with a larger influence on this world.

“You are late for the placement exams, Mr. Mutou.” The NPC sneers, purple lipstick twists into a rather cruel leer. “If you wish to stay in duel academy you will have to defeat me.” 

_ Lvl 20 Wandering Duelist Dr. Vellian Crowler: Entrance Exam #1 _

Yugi can’t help but wonder what the man in front of him could be programmed to have a doctorate in. It certainly wasn’t design. Knowing Kaiba, it was something ridiculous like dueling. The name was somewhat familiar, Crowler was a moderately successful European duelist, wasn’t he? Not a champion, but tended to place consistently in the semi-finals, a preference for Ancient Gears. Yugi swaps a few machine shutdown cards into his deck, knowing that he lacks raw firepower, or combo ability. He couldn’t rely on drawing ‘ _ Power of the Guardians _ ’ in his opening hand with only one copy sitting in his deck, or pulling ‘ _ Ancient Rules’ _ and _ 'Dark Magician' _ close together.

“Your nothing but a truant.” Crowler cackles as the coin toss falls on tails. “I’ll fail this insolent little brat and send him home in no time!”

Yugi hadn’t thought someone could step on that many nerves, but Crowler brought up memories of long bygone days that he took no pleasure in recalling. His hand coils against the familiar chain, he can feel the links settling perfectly into old scars.

“I regret to inform you Doctor, that the last teacher who tried to determine my fate with a game, lost terribly.” Disregarding the fact that the events around Ms. Chono were linked to- Not the time Yugi.

The duel is something of a challenge. If only because Yugi couldn't assemble a proper deck, but it's a delight to face an opponent who special summons, and uses a themed deck. He wins, narrowly, and with a ' _ Feral Imp'  _ that was equipped with a somewhat broken equip spell. ' _ De-spell'  _ would have made short work of that among many other spells, but with NPCs sticking to twenty card decks, there was no space for them. Perhaps higher levels would deal with negating spells and traps. 

He turns to the professor, who appears to have finished the dramatic defeat breakdown that all the A.I. appeared to have. "Now then, Dr. Crowler was it? You wouldn't happen to know the location of one Jaden Yuki, would you? He has hair like a Kuriboh." Ah, he wishes Mokuba had given a few more details. Jacket colour would have been handy, as well as some personality descriptors. 

"That Slifer Slacker?" Crowler sneers, face scrunching and neck stretching in a way that reminded Yugi of a proud and aggressive turkey. "You'll find him at the Slifer dorms, which you will soon find yourself well acquainted with." 

"I see, is there a campus map sir?" Yugi asks, rocking back gently on his heels, shrinking his frame back down to his high school posture; it never hurt to layer on the meekness or titles when dealing with people like this. 

"All Duel Academy students receive access to a campus map upon passing the entrance exams. Use that map to do everyone a favour and build yourself a proper deck at the card shop. And it is Doctor, not  _ sir. _ " Dr. Crowler answers in a markedly consistent tone, and the stresses on sir were very nice. No visible reaction to behavioural changes, he'd have to test that on some other NPC.

"Thank you for your assistance Dr. Crowler." Yugi flashes the blond a cheery fake smile and bounds away as his younger self would have. What an irritable program, he hasn't spoken to the man he's based on, but he hopes that it's just a caricature.

Upon exiting the dueling arena he collapses tiredly against the hallway wall and pulls up his menu. Slifer dorms were located on the north-west coast of the island, fortunately there was a teleportation feature. The card shop however, did not have a teleport option, but it was a ten minute walk from his current location. It looked to be the building that had the Card Trader standing outside of it. 

Yugi makes his way back to the card shop in half the time and notes that the screens now displayed available booster packs. Twenty-seven pack varieties, probably to be slowly introduced once the beta was opened. However, as of right now Yugi could pull from any of them, so long as he had the currency for it. He flips through each category, and it’s a little disappointing that ‘ _ Servants of Kings’ _ lacked any form of  _ Dark Magician  _ support, outside of the thumbnail card. “He glances at  _ ‘Crimson Kingdom’  _ noting the  _ ‘Dark Paladin’  _ and  _ ‘Buster Blader’  _ cards.

With a sigh he knows that in the end, he was always going to dump his gems into the ‘ _ Echoes of Silence’ _ pack. It featured an old favourite, was magician based and carried most of its needed support cards. It was also a smaller pool of cards to pull from, increasing his odds of pulling a more useful card. He mourns his five hundred gems and grips his newly acquired packs gently. He sets himself on a bench and rips open a pack. 

“Kuri!” The soft sound causes Yugi to look down. The fluffy monster has rolled to a stop at his feet. Thankfully no contact, he isn’t sure whether they’ve been programmed to explode here, but Yugi wouldn’t doubt it. Although this was the first monster he had seen outside of a duel. He frowns, and pulls out the cards. Three a pack, that’s highway robbery! Sixteen gems for a card, at least at home he could pay six-hundred yen for nine cards. He sighs and looks at what the first pack reaped, spell cards that support things he hasn’t drawn yet.

He continues opening the packs, noting a little bewildered, that the more packs he opens, the more Kuribohs flock to him. The higher the rarity of the cards in the pack, the more puffballs appeared. On the last pack that he opens, hieroglyphs trace glowing patterns across the ground, only a handful of symbols visible beneath the Kuriboh hoard. As he moves to look closer a Kuriboh tumbles into his lap, and he watched in mute horror as a puff of stardust glitter, and smoke explodes all over him. 

“Definitely not Kaiba’s style.” Yugi coughs, fanning the air as he attempts to spit out any inhaled glitter. Kaiba hated all three of the things that had just occurred, and he was fairly sure Kaiba still flinched at the sight of Kuriboh whenever they dueled, when they had dueled. He glances down at the cards, and his lips twitch upwards.  _ ‘Silent Magician Lvl 8’  _

“I suppose this is a sign.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has already spiraled out of my control. This was the first natural break point I found in my chapter 2 draft.  
Also expect a lot of Yugi just admiring game features, and no duels will be written, nothing will get done if I do that, what with course loads and all that.  
GX was supposed to be two large chapters, but expect it to be 4-5 small-medium sized ones.  
The reason that it's the Toronto level is mostly a mean spirited joke held between all of the local universities, the colours sync up for the most part and everything.  
Published Oct 29th 2019  
Edited Dec 15th 2019. Syntax and a colloquialisation of speech. Some cuts for flow and general upkeeping. Still not happy, but more satisfied I suppose.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh look Jaden is here.

Teleportation was not the sensory nightmare Yugi had expected, but he should have known Kaiba would have fine tuned that feature the second it bothered him. It was as simple as blinking, and he found himself in a room that looked slightly bigger than Anzu’s dorm room. If he was remembering the dimensions properly. A bunk bed, with impressively scratchy sheets in a washed out blue, noisy wooden blinds that had a fine coating of dust, and a tiny desk that was shuttered against the opposite wall of the beds. He runs a hand along the frame and marvels at the splintered wood that forms an impressively terrible ladder. He plucks a few rough splinters from his fingers and watches as blood beads in their place, bright red darkening to an almost black before trailing down to spatter against creaky floorboards, which had their own set of mysterious stains. 

“Hey, uh you’re the new guy right?” The voice was soft, a little awkward and carried a notable amount of shakiness. It’s clearly masculine, but in a more tenor fashion. Yugi looks at the teen that stands in his doorway, a bright red jacket contrasts against a wrinkled black shirt. His pants are light and covered in what looks to be brown cat fur. He draws his gaze upwards and meets concerned, red rimmed brown eyes, with bags so large and dark, they looked to carry the weight of the world in them, framed by greasy brown hair that looked like a scraggly Kuriboh. An actual Kuriboh, of the winged variety hovers behind him. Neat.

“Oh, you’re the human Kuriboh, Jaden Yuki, right?” Yugi blurts out, suddenly, viscerally aware that he must look like an absolute creep, admiring the way blood is dripping from his fingers.

“Uh, yeah. There’s not a lot of Slifers, so I try to say hi on the first day.” Jaden shifts to his other foot, and smiles weakly. “So do you want a bandage for that? And, uh, what’s your name? I can’t keep calling you spiky dude in my head.”

“Yeah that’d be great. And my name’s Yugi Mutou.” Yugi replies, realizing that the blood was still dripping. That was probably a feature that would be tackled later. Why there was blood programmed into something that was entirely focused on a card game, was more than a little odd, but it could be used to reflect the damage taken in shadow games.

“Like the King of Games?” Jaden gives him an odd look, gently grabbing Yugi’s wrist and dragging him along to the first floor of an incredibly rickety building. “You’re not like a Dmitri are you?”

“Yeah, exactly like the King of Games.” Yugi replies, before pausing. “Who’s Dmitri?” 

“He’s a student who would impersonate famous duelists, and try to use their decks in duels. He actually stole The King of Games’ Battle City deck which was on display in the Obelisk Blue hall a while back.” Jaden says casually. “It was wild seeing him parade around as the big three, would’ve been neat if he’d gone for Mai Valentine, she’s got a sweet deck. He got pretty upset when I beat him, so he ran around as me for a month.” 

Yugi blinks. That, was oddly specific background material. “Do you know if the deck is still here?” 

Jaden’s eyes glaze over for a second and they pause outside of what looks to be a dining hall. “Side-quest available: _ King of Copycats. Yugi Mutou’s deck is on display at Obelisk Blue, sneak in to get an early look. _” It comes out in a dead monotone, and Yugi blinks. That pulled from the immersion factor, a lot. With his free, non-bloody hand he taps accept.

“Wicked! So, you as good at games, as your namesake? I wonder what he’s up to these days.” Jaden says as if nothing happened, tugging him gently across the threshold. A very fat cat is sitting on a sheet covered sofa, banded tail swishing gently. Yugi waves at it, and receives no response.

“I should hope so, and this.” Yugi says dryly, trying not to think about how the room felt like a tomb. They sit at one of the many tables as Jaden applies a cool balm and Kuriboh bandages to the pads of his afflicted fingers. He had attempted to apply them himself, but Jaden had swatted his pitiful one handed attempt away and done it in seconds. The Winged Kuriboh hovers anxiously around Jaden’s head, cooing softly as green paws comb through matted hair.

“It’s a shame the gate isn’t working or we could play duelists from outside the Academy. I was hoping that they would have fixed it by now, since Jesse-” Jaden stops abruptly, and Yugi’s other questions are dropped for another, more pressing one. 

“What happened to Jesse?” Yugi asks, wondering if the other would respond. 

“It’s all my fault. Jesse’s gone and it’s all my fault.” Jaden croaks out. “I wasn’t strong enough, if I had been better, Yubel wouldn’t have- It’s all my fault-” Jaden heaves erratically, the cat makes it way over to them, and jumps onto Jaden’s lap. Shaking fingers sink into thick fur and Yugi stares contemplatively at the purple adhesive bandages that wrap around his own finger tips.

“Were you the one who stopped Jesse from stepping through the gate?”

“No, but I could’ve gotten him through, if I’d been awake- If I had stopped Yubel-” Jaden stutters, inhaling sharply, air whistling between chattering teeth.

“Was Yubel the one who took him? Were they the one who caused you to fall unconscious?” Yugi asks, shifting in the stiff wooden chair.

“Yes, but if I’d been stronger, they’d never have been able-”

“You’re what? Fifteen, sixteen? You shouldn’t have to carry this much responsibility, especially with all of the professional duelists teaching here. Jesse wasn’t your fault, you didn’t try to prevent him from stepping through the gate.” Yugi cuts in, thinking of Jounouchi having to pay for Shizuka’s operation, Otogi and his unstable father, Kaiba running a corporation and raising Mokuba, though that seemed to have fallen to the wayside, in favour of his newest hyper-fixation. “I know that it’s unavoidable sometimes, that sometimes destiny comes for you-”

“It’s because of me! Because I sent Yubel to space, I thought it would help her, but they hate me! It’s my fault-” 

Yugi’s brain stutters. Yubel wasn’t some evil human, a spirit then. Another dark spirit with a grudge. Who was sent to space. 

“If you- If you sent them to space, was it because they were hurting people?” 

“They used to hurt the people who dueled me, they were my favourite monster, but everyone we dueled, they were too afraid to pick up a deck again. No one wanted to duel me, and they were getting angrier.” 

This was at least, semi-familiar territory. Outside of sending monster cards into space, wait no, hadn’t Kaiba sent a couple of pod fulls out? Something about ‘If there’s intelligent life out there, let’s teach them how to duel!’ Or something.

“Did you ask Yubel to hurt them for you?” 

“No! Of course not, I tried to tell them no, but no one believes a first grader!” Jaden growls fingers clenching, the cat yowls and swats at him. “Ah, sorry Pharaoh.”

“Pharaoh?” Yugi asks, voice tight, hand extended to help the cat in some half-aborted attempt to help them.

“Ha, I didn’t name him. He was Professor Banners, the old staff rep of Slifer. He didn’t have any family, so when he died, Pharaoh was left alone. He was a big history buff, used to teach us about how dueling dated all the way back to Ancient Egypt.” Jaden pauses, a heavy silence settles between them. The younger boy coughs awkwardly as the cat gnaws on Yugi’s fingers. “He, uh, he named the cat after the Nameless Pharaoh, told us about how he’s the greatest duelist of all time. . .” 

“He really was.” Yugi croaks, rubbing at his watering eyes. “Sorry, the ca- Pharaohs nipping, it just irritated my cuts, I’m such a crybaby.” He laughs, breathy and tremulous. “You know that it isn’t- you shouldn’t blame yourself for Yubel, not really. I don’t know your whole story, but it um, it sounds like all the adults in your life let you down when you needed them most.”

“I’ll think about it.” Jaden breathes out. The tension clears, and the room feels a little less like a mausoleum. “But only if you tell me about your problems.” 

“I don’t have a problem.” Yugi smiles widely, cheeks burning.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but you’re gonna hurt your hand if you keep doing that.” Jaden mumbles, gesturing vaguely at Yugi. He looks down and finds his hands tightly wrapped in steel, bloodless from the force of his absent tugging.

“I’ll sound crazy.” Yugi says, thinking of where to start.

“Nothing can beat that time I had to duel some Pharaoh, Abidos, he was worshipped as a dueling god, but he didn’t actually know the rules? It all happened because the school’s superintendent wanted to become young again, by using the Sacred Beasts to drain every card and duelist of their duel energy.” Jaden says, and if Yugi was being honest with himself, he should have expected this after being told about Yubel. Also duel energy? That sounded suspiciously like dimension dueling. It couldn’t hurt anyways, Jaden was an A.I. and it wasn’t like Yugi wanted to dump all of his insecurities on Jounouchi or Anzu. They had moved on, and he, he was reminded by every moment of aching silence, of what, who, he had lost.

So Yugi tells Jaden everything, from the Pharaoh’s early days, to his present. “That’s why I stopped dueling, after Diva, I realized that he must have purposefully put himself at a disadvantage. It’s the only thing that makes sense, all three Gods in a deck is a nightmare, not to mention all of the tribute summons required.” Yugi stares blankly into his lap, he had calculated the pull rates, the likelihood of someone without the ability to manipulate luck being able to pull any of that against Yugi’s functional and tailored deck. Just thinking of all the numbers had his head spinning and eyes blurring.

A gentle hand tugs on ones snarled in chains. “You shouldn’t beat yourself up over something like that. You said it yourself, he could bend fate in his favour, it doesn’t matter how he built his deck, he still gave his all against you. After all, who can say they beat all three God cards in a single duel, or the previous King of Games?” Jaden tugs him into a hug, and Yugi falls into it stiffly. As the others arms wrap around him he’s immediately struck by the desire to see Jounouchi. To idle days away with the blond, playing games, talking about girls and to watch the other light up the room with his boundless enthusiasm for the next tournament. “You’re allowed to cry you know, to miss him.” He inhales awkwardly, congested but unable to sate his curiosity as he studiously tries to ignore the feelings overflowing painfully in his chest. Jaden smells like shadows and when the sun is peeking out from behind the clouds, followed by an earthy scent that was very much reminiscent of Jounouchi.

‘I shouldn’t want him stuck here with me. He wanted to move on, deserved to after three thousand years, trapped with only maddening shadows for company.’ Yugi thinks as his breath stutters, he relaxes slightly, and swallows his guilt as he pretends, that for just a moment Jaden is Jounouchi. Jounouchi who had been crowned as the Japanese champion at the last national tournament. Who had grumbled that he wouldn’t consider it true until he could wrangle a win from Kaiba and Yugi. Kaiba who had been focused on the now defunct space elevator, and Yugi, Yugi had locked himself away to learn every coding language he could after Anzu left for America. 

“I won’t consider your words until you promise to consider them too.” Jaden says after a long while. His jacket shoulder is soaked to a bloody red from the amount of tears that Yugi had dripped onto it. 

“I’ll think about it.” Yugi sighed, before checking the time. “Oh the cards. I should head to Obelisk and check if they're still there.” 

“I have a couple of friends who'd probably be up for checking 'em out! Would ya mind if they came with?” Yugi stares oddly at Jaden. He would have thought that if the brunet had friends one of them would have walked in on their heart-to-heart or talked these things through with him. Not to mention it was like talking to a new person, his voice had shifted from a deadened, almost monotone, to a bright and perky tone, hints of laughter linger in the dimples that appear with every facial twitch.

“Yeah, it would be no problem. Let’s just uh, try and head out as soon as possible.” Yugi curls into himself, and stops from gripping the chain with an aborted spasm, settling instead for digging crescents into his palms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was sitting for a month, I'm still not a fan even though I've poked at it for a while. Another thing to be fixed in post I suppose. The next chapter is half-written, but no idea if I'll like it well enough to immediately release. Also GX should be two more modest chapters before skipping into what I actually want to reach.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yugi wonders if Duel Academy exists solely to mock him.

Jaden introduces him to a short boy with messy cyan hair named Syrus, all wide grey eyes, whose circular frames only emphasize how large they are. He’s small in the way he carries himself, curled in so tightly, it screams easy target. His red jacket denotes his Slifer status, Yugi wonders if this is Kaiba’s idea of a bad joke. 

“It’s nice to meet you Yugi, have you dueled Jay yet? He’s one of the best duelists in the academy!” Syrus chirps, puffing up as he turns to Jaden with a smile, and oh, Yugi gets it now. He glances at the practically glowing Jaden and turns away immediately, towards Jaden’s other friend. This boy is broad and fills out his red trimmed jacket, his nose and hair tufts reminds Yugi of a koala. Yugi wonders idly if he- Chumley, used a Koala archetype, it wasn’t unheard of for duelists to prefer monsters they held a resemblance to, and it would be an easy way to distinguish characters. 

“He’s almost as good as me and my koala’s” Chumley leans down to stage whisper, Yugi closes his eyes and laughs awkwardly. That would explain Slifer, the koala archetype didn’t have great support or any particularly special cards, but he could respect playing a deck purely out of love.

“Is that so? Would you be up for a duel after all of this?”

“Heck ya my dude, I’m always up for a duel!” Jaden grins, flashing a bright thumbs up. Yugi tries not to flinch. Did he just act this way in front of his friends, or was it the quest?

They fall into a welcome silence, creeping through the winding halls of the Obelisk class centre. The lights were all on, which made sneaking feel pointless, but he joins Jaden and his friends in their unnecessarily exaggerated wall clinging, lips tugging upwards as Jaden whips his entire head around a corner. 

Around the corner his face is plastered everywhere. It’s a little embarrassing to see the large posters of his younger self dramatically playing a card, but at least it means they’ve found the correct hall. Not all of the posters are of him, the one’s of his other self has his breath catching in his throat. .

His eyes blur and he practically sprints, breezing past the younger teens as his legs carry him to a room plastered with his image. He disregards that in favour of the glass display case in the centre of the room. This was. perhaps the worst way to display a deck. A series of frames mounted to the wall would’ve worked better, and made theft more of a hassle. The empty case is unsurprisingly surrounded by broken glass, and when he turns around, Jaden is there.

“Aw man, I can’t believe someone would steal Yugi Mutou’s deck like that. We should try and catch the thief !” 

“Yeah you’re right Jay! People bought tickets for this, and maybe I could get the King of Games to sign my ‘ _ Dark Magician Girl’ _ poster as thanks!” That was a little weird. The poster bit and the lack of them connecting Yugi’s name and face to the posters.

“It’s a fairly large campus, we have to narrow down our search locations.” He says instead, and watches as the trio erupt into a clamour, speaking over each other as they toss suggestions. Yugi can’t contribute much, he hasn’t taken the time to study the map or explore the campus on foot. Speaking of time, he pulls up the menu and frowns. It’s been five hours, he’s hoping that this isn’t some elaborate hoax to get him to beta-test their school, ending with Kaiba as the final boss. But, that wouldn’t make sense, and Mokuba while prone to mischief and subtly pushing his brother's agenda, wouldn’t have helped him with deck setup if he was supposed to be reset upon entry. All possible suspects were dead or blockaded, at least he was fairly sure the Big Five were dead. Schroeder wouldn’t be allowed close enough to Kaiba Corp to even attempt it, and unless you were personally invited into the Headquarters by a Kaiba, there was a thorough screening process for all entrants.

“Hey, Yugi! We settled on a couple of locations a potential thief could be!” Jaden chirps and Yugi can’t hold back his flinch. 

“Ah, that’s great, so, where are we headed first?” He asks, wondering where the quest menu had gone. He would have thought opening quests would be more straightforward on where the missions antagonists were.

“Well, if I stole a famous deck, I’d want to get off the island asap! So that means the thief’s probably headed to the docks!” 

They head towards the docks, which were close to the Slifer dorms. Standing there is a boy with the saddest bangs Yugi has ever laid eyes on. “You poor fool, you fried your hair.” Yugi cries, it was criminal how shitty the bleach job was. “You’re not supposed to bleach it all at once, it takes several treatments to lighten to this shade of blond. If you wanted easy blond bangs you should have ordered some online.”

“I don’t think that’s what you should be focusing on.” Syrus hisses as the impostor launches into a monologue. The yellow jacket only feeds into the poor bleach job, and the millennium puzzle print on their shirt detracts from any impression of authenticity.

“Right.” Yugi clears his throat. “You’re Dmitri correct? If you hand over the stolen Battle City deck we can pretend this never happened.”

“I didn’t steal anything, I am Yugi.” Their voice is pitched low, a poor mimicry of his other self, Yugi's mouth twists downward. Dmitri laughs and a challenge window pops up. “With these cards, I am the King of Games.” 

“Of course. We can never do things the easy way.” Yugi huffs, accepting the challenge with a slap of his hand. 

“Be careful! That deck has never lost, there’s no weaknesses!” The gaggle of Slifers call out. 

Which isn’t true. Kaiba had made it a hobby to constantly re-engineer his deck around any weaknesses that were in th- his deck. Not to mention the speed dueling style affected by this virtual reality cut the deck down to its core, removing the majority of the work arounds they’d put into it.

* * *

He makes short work of the Ra student, once  _ Silent Magician lvl8  _ was summoned Dmitri’s strategies fell apart. Not that Yugi was expecting much of a challenge from an early stage sub-quest. The idiot had summoned  _ Kuriboh  _ in attack mode, but he’s digressed.

He tugs Dmitri’s duel disk closer and attempts to lift the cards out of the duel disk. Any card he draws out is blank. Of course. 

He drops Dmitri’s arm and watches as a cream envelope falls from his jacket. Yugi spots Kaiba’s handwriting curling across the centre, it’s his name. He grabs it and tears it open with little fanfare, tuning out the buzz of activity coming from the A.I.’s.

‘I told you, cheating would be penalized.’ Yugi scoffs, and crumples the thick paper into a ball. He swings to his feet and yawns. When his eyes open, the sky is a bloody red, a burning engorged eye hangs in place of the moon and everyone has disappeared. 

Well, wasn’t that just typical. With a tired exhale he opens the school map and taps the Slifer dorms. 

Nothing happens.

He taps again. It’s just a map. No teleportation. Another layer of the penalty, or perhaps the penalty in and of itself? Nevertheless he walks back to the shabby motel style dormitory, it’s barren, no signs of any students. 

He debates how thoroughly to search, before brushing away his concerns and opens all the doors, all the rooms look unlived in, except for two. The first of the two he enters has no door. It has a large mattress, and seems to only have one resident. It’s neat at first glance with the bed made and an orderly desk, but upon closer inspection Yugi can see dirty laundry tucked under the bed with crumpled loose leaf paper. The closet marked by a hanging Obelisk uniform, hides more crumpled clothing and miscellaneous junk. 

The second room is as tight a space as the rest, a faded Slifer poster is taped to the wall above the desk, candle stubs are adhered to the wood by large pools of wax. A stack of crusty looking rice balls sit in front of the makeshift shrine. Yugi turns away with a snort, next to grab his attention is the bunk bed. Only two of the three bunks looked lived in. The bottom most has crumpled blankets at the foot, tan animal hairs and crumbs coat the mattress. The middle bunk has Dark Magician Girl posters plastered across the wall, and the sheets were haphazardly spread. The top is as empty as it looked, a tidy bed and a flat pillow. He signs the posters with one of the many markers that were scattered across the floor, and hops onto the topmost bunk.

If the A.I. ran on normal student behaviour outside of quests, they would eventually return here, which sounded better than running aimlessly through the map. Tamping down on the uncomfortable roiling in his chest he sprawls across the stiff mattress and waits for Jaden and Syrus to return. The crash of waves slamming against the cliff-side blurs into deafening white noise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, I've been a mix of deeply unsatisfied with this, caught up in a myriad of other ideas and school, and I 100% lost track of time. 2019 feels like a half-remembered night terror at this point, cheers to 2020 for uping the ante and making it the equivalent of the 75th hunger games.  
This feels more fillery then anticipated, but if I tried to make everything to my intended standard it would never be published. Gx will be concluded in a chapter or two. Doubtfully in June, as my summer courses are handing out exams and essays then.  
Posted May 25th 2020

**Author's Note:**

> So the Duel Links app updated with a DSOD app, and my brain caught feelings, and promptly decided that I should start writing fanfiction again. Criticism is welcome, and all spelling and grammar catches are blessings. Yes, Yugi is supposed to be bitter in this, and Mokuba manipulative.


End file.
